In there “[sic]” indicates that the editor has detected an error. You can read about that here.

From the quotation, there is nothing grammatically wrong about it. Truncating some and expanding some, we can derive this:

We cannot tell you what will be.

There is no error there. In fact, a charitable read would be to possibly infer that the speaker is making an allusion to Doris Day singing “Que Sera, Sera“.

This assumption may not be correct, but it doesn’t change the grammatical correctness of the sentence. If my assumption is correct, the speaker has been rather eloquent, and the editor has been rather ignorant.

Though the sentence does have a certain “flavour”, there is no error.

This indicates to me that editors are sometimes ignorant of English grammar, and unwilling to entertain the idea of English grammar structures that don’t fit into a strict set of prescriptive criteria.

Abstracting this to a bit more of a higher level, I have seen in many cases where readers are unwilling to try to understand the speaker, and instead interpret the speaker in the worst light possible. This is the exact opposite of a charitable read, and is anathema to any kind of productive intellectual discourse.

If you are unwilling to try to understand the person you are speaking with, there is no point in even talking. Simply admit that you are a closed-minded asshole and walk away. That saves everyone a good amount of time.

0

The alternative media delivers a far more accurate and better picture about what is going on in the world, but there are times when they have catastrophic failures and present the same talking points that you would expect from the bobble heads on MSNBC. No matter the source, one must always be vigilant to think critically about what is being said and not blindly trust a source simply because they’ve been correct in the past.

I recently saw 2 extreme failures (or perhaps lapses in judgement). One failure led me to abandon a particular source, while another caused me to lose a lot of respect for a journalist who I would otherwise consider near impeccable.

THE REAL NEWS

In what can only be considered a bubonic nuclear train wreck, Jaisal Noor of The Real News interviewed Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC is a leftist hate organisation that targets pretty much anyone that isn’t a neo-liberal communist. While they may “get it right” about some organisations, they group together people like Judge Andrew Napolitano and Ron Paul with organisations such as Stormfront.

Jaisal’s interview stopped short of being completely obsequious, but was never-the-less simply pandering to the extreme agenda of the SPLC. Listening to Mark Potok spew his venom and hatred either makes you vomit uncontrollably, or laugh hysterically at his lunacy.

This is that interview:

The lies and deceit out of Mark’s mouth start quick and never stop; he doesn’t waste much time before getting to “racist and anti-semitic”.

But do watch for yourself. If you wonder about any of the points Mark makes, you can easily do a tiny bit of digging to discover that he is lying or twisting the situation.

The comments below the video are filled with people unsubscribing from The Real News.

I got into a mini-discussion on Twitter with Jaisal, condemning his choice to give a platform to a hate group.

Which should come as no surprise. The left invariably resorts to name-calling as it loses the debate due to a lack of logic, reason, and supporting facts/evidence.

But whether or not someone is or isn’t a racist has no bearing on their property rights. Though you wouldn’t know this if you’d ever heard any of the rhetoric from the left. For the left, it seems that natural rights are contingent upon your agreement with them.

Had Jaisal taken the time to actually look into what Cliven Bundy said, he would be hard pressed to accuse him of being racist. You can find Cliven Bundy’s remarks here:

And here with a full transcript of what he said, which you can compare against the convenient snippets found in the left-wing media:

One of the problems with the left is that leftist rarely ever give anything a charitable read. Their goal is to root out anything that could possibly be (mis)construed as other than what it is so that they can exploit it for political purposes. No big surprise there.

But, all the evidence is readily available and out in the open for anyone to verify.

REASON.TV

I was pretty shocked to hear Nick Gillespie in this video:

Reason.TV and Nick Gillespie are generally pretty darn good. They’re still pretty statist, but minarchism is a good deal closer to sanity than the authoritarianism preached by the left-wing communists and the right-wing fascists. (Is there a difference between them?)

Seriously Nick? Really? At that point I figured that I’d stepped into the twilight zone. I lost a lot of respect for Reason and Nick there.

Speaking about Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling:

They can go fuck themselves.

Apparently Nick got his news about Bundy from Salon and MSNBC.

NOTE: I don’t watch professional sports. I have zero interest in the athletes, coaches, or team owners. I’ve not read anything significant about Donald Sterling or the accusations against him, and have nothing to say on that topic. So, maybe Nick is right about Donald going off and fucking himself. I don’t know.

Nick is way off base in his comments about Cliven Bundy. But aside from Nick accusing Bundy of being racist, perhaps more concerning are his accusation that Bundy is a “moocher” and assertion that the land belongs to the federal government. Nick’s accusation there is eerily reminiscent of what one would expect to hear out of the SPLC, while his assertion is flat-out statist.

The rest of the article is actually quite good. He nails 3 good points with good support and arguments. The “meat” of the article isn’t objectionable – it is his use of racism and Bundy as a “launch pad” for the article that is off-base.

POISON

While the first case with The Real News is more akin to a drinking glass full of poison on a generously prepared banquet table, the second case is far more subtle/insidious. Nick slips in a poison pill into what otherwise would have been a wonderful, tall glass of freshly squeezed juice. i.e. Where The Real News had an entire episode full of poison, Reason.TV merely poisoned a portion of the episode.

SCRUTINY & VIGILANCE

I won’t be watching any of The Real News anymore. The magnitude of the lack of judgement in giving the SPLC a platform is simply far too much to continue to attribute any credibility to them. i.e. There is no point in watching complete garbage and trying to make sense of it.

On the other hand, I’ll still continue to watch Reason.TV and read Reason. However, I will certainly be much more suspicious about what they report from now on.

Everyone has a lapse of judgement or makes an error every now and then. Expecting otherwise would be foolish.

I suppose the take-away lesson from the above is that even from sources that you would normally trust, it is still best to listen and read with a critical mind and not simply accept what is being presented to you. (This blog post included.)

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own beliefs and actions. Very often we are deceived into believing horrible things. But it is not the “being deceived” that is the fault – it is the refusal to see through a deception that is a fault. This requires that we question our beliefs with the same or greater vigilance that we would apply to the messages we receive through others and the media, be that mainstream media or the alternative media.

0

The topic of violence really sets a lot of people off. Those that love it, get upset when you point out that they participate and endorse it. Those that abhor violence, get testy when the topic of defense comes up.

The first of those is easily seen in any discussion of tax with a statist. Lots of those out there, and not hard to find.

The other case, where people advocate violence for defense (outside of the state), isn’t so common. But there are 2 good examples out there.

So what to do? It’s a terribly unpopular thing to say, but the answer, at some point, is to kill government agents. The government agents know that, and that’s why they want a tank.

There really isn’t anything very controversial about what they’ve said, i.e. If the state initiates violence (aggresses) against you, you are well within your rights to defend yourself or resist that violence with violence.

If someone is trying to kill you, or attacking you and could kill you, you’re a complete moron if you refuse to use lethal force to save your own life (or that of another person).

He estimates that in the 20th century alone, about 262,000,000 people were murdered by various states/governments.

Those 262,000,000 people stand as a testament to the moral validity and moral imperative of defending yourself and/or other people with violence, and with deadly violence if necessary.

To put that somewhat into perspective, the Nazi murder of Jews represents about 2% of the total number of civilians murdered by government. About 50x more people were murdered that people never talk about.

Ignoring the topic of using violence against the state because violence is detestable, is simply irresponsible. Those that say, “it can’t happen here,” are most likely the ones that most need to discuss the topic. Larken Rose goes over the topic in detail in his video, “It Can’t Happen Here“.

The debate on the topic needs to happen. People need to think about defensive violence against the police and the state.

Nobody is saying, “Run out and kill the first cop you see.” Nobody is saying, “Kill every cop you can.” Nobody want to run around killing people. Well, that’s not really true – it appears that our governments love killing people and really get off on it, but let’s assume we’re talking about sane people – you know – voluntarists and anarchists. 😉

Perhaps, Mr. Krugman, you can explain how without roads, goods and services can be delivered to people efficiently?

It appears that you agree with Adam Smith, and that you two might agree with some other similar arguments. For example, when it comes to corn, as Smith uses, we might take it that wealthy land owners with large estates aren’t putting their land to the best use. For that matter, how much space does anyone need? Perhaps it would be better to bulldoze all the estates, and the suburbs? By moving people into small cubicles, we can free up land for more productive uses, like GMO corn from Monsanto. Because as we all know, if it isn’t patentable, it’s not worth anything. Why not maximize profits for all we can?

Silver and gold as currency? Surely jewelry has no value. Keeping silver & gold as a currency can’t serve any purpose, can it? Neither is silver used in any industrial applications? It must not play any part in electronics, because Adam Smith told us that silver isn’t valuable, and since he’s dead, he must be right.

No, Mr. Krugman. You are just another symptom of the problem. You perpetuate outright lies. Well, if you believe them, then they’re not lies, but I’d bet that you’re not a complete and total moron.

Silver and gold have many real world applications. Please try to educate yourself and find out about the industrial applications of silver and the worldwide silver production capacity.

When it comes to Bitcoin, Mr. Krugman, perhaps you would do well to understand what cryptography is, what its applications are, and try to understand how cryptographic analysis of numbers and verifications of transactions creates a currency that is based in mathematics (cryptography) that cannot be debased like how the USD and the JPY are being raped by central banks at the moment.

You make a fool of yourself when you open your mouth with such utterly incompetent and ignorant drivel. Or rather, you appear to be a fool to people who understand the issues. Would I be wrong to guess that doesn’t include the readership of the New York Times? Because otherwise, I’d bet that you’d have kept your mouth shut.

2

Most people don’t enjoy lying, and even with good intentions, lying to children still doesn’t seem quite right. So how can you tell a kid that Santa does exist and remain truthful? It’s surprisingly easier than one might expect, and certainly makes more sense than to deny his existence.

First, it helps to understand the different ways in which we understand ‘existence’.

The first and most obvious is physical existence. The chair you are sitting on either has a physical existence or it does not, in which case you wouldn’t be sitting on it. This is in some ways rather uninteresting, unless you like arguing simply for the sake of arguing, in which case it provides a never ending source of argumentation bliss.

A second, and perhaps more interesting way that we understand existence is in terms of non-physical existence, such as when you have an idea, or your teddy bear has a cute name. You can quickly examine how people talk about these things in these simple examples:

I have an idea.

The implicit assumptions are that there is an idea that exists, and that you possess the idea.

My teddy bear’s name is Kant.

Again, the teddy bear possesses something, a name. But in order for the teddy bear to possess that, it must necessarily exist.

Now, it is pretty much trivial to change the name of your teddy bear from Kant to Immanuel. Naming is a specific case of something called an “expletive performative”, that is, the act of doing so makes it so. When you name your teddy bear, poof! It’s name is what you just gave it. Your naming made it so.

The idea of non-physical existence isn’t a radical notion, and has many examples that are firmly entrenched in society and law. The entire concept of intellectual property (IP) relies on this. Copyright and patent law assume “intangible assets”.

For example, Disney “owns” Mickey Mouse. But for Disney to have ownership, Mickey Mouse must have some kind of existence, i.e. non-physical or intangible existence.

So it should be relatively obvious that we do have another sense of the word “exist” for non-physical things.

Then how does this relate to Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy? Pretty simple. They all exist. Just not as physical entities. Sure, there are physical manifestations of them. You can see a physical manifestation of Santa at the mall around Christmas time, or on a TV Christmas special, or perhaps in a Santa Claus cookie. Are they still Santa? Certainly. As manifestations of the idea of Santa.

Substitute in there Mickey Mouse or some other “fictional” character and you can get the same result.

So, yes, there is a Santa Claus. And yes, Santa Claus does exist. When you’re a very small child, your initial reaction is to assume that Santa is a physical entity, which is natural enough. Later, we often drift into disbelief. However, as thinking adults, we can grasp how Santa does exist, and how we can use the idea of Santa to make this world a better place.

For those that are wondering, yes, I believe in the existence of leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, unicorns, fire-breathing dragons, talking dogs, and yes… there most certainly is a God.

The question really isn’t about whether these exist or not – the question is about what you do with their existence. Do you help make the world a better place with them? Or do you retreat into some flavour of cynicism and piss on everyone else’s parade?

0

Graham had heard all about “Frank’s Dogs” from a bunch of friends that were raving about them. Kim had raved to Graham, “The best hotdog you’ll ever taste!” And that was probably the worst thing Graham had heard.

But the county fair didn’t come around more than once a year, and this time, Graham was determined to get one. And maybe a cool beer or 12 to go with it.

He set off for the county fair, paid the admission fee, and started wandering about the fair grounds looking for “Frank’s Dogs”. Rides, games, food booths, crafts booths, farmers’ produce booths, preserved goods… All manner of fun was there to be had.

Passing “Ryan’s Relish” and then “Marvin’s Mustard”, Graham spied “Frank’s Dogs” and made a beeline for it. The line was a bit longer than he really wanted to bother with, but, “What the hell,” he thought, “I’ll at least be able to say I tried one.”

Graham waited and waited. The looks of sheer joy on people’s faces as they left with their hotdogs only made him hungrier.

By the time he got to the booth, he was pretty hungry. “One hotdog, please,” Graham asked of the young woman behind the counter. “Here you go. That’ll be $15.” Graham’s jaw fell slack. “What the…” he stopped himself before screaming out several profanities, then figured that he’d waited so long that he might as well just pay the exorbitant price. “Here you go,” said Graham, handing the woman a $10 and $5 bill. Glancing up, he saw the menu consisted of only 1 thing: Hotdog $15.

Stepping aside for the next person in line to get to the counter, Graham looked for condiments, but found nothing at the booth. There was an odd pay machine though, and it looked like it accepted coins. Examining it closer, Graham saw the sign, “Napkins $4”. A glazed look overtook his face with his jaw still slack. “Damned if I’ll pay $4 for a napkin,” he said out loud. A few people turned and gave him scornful looks. Amongst the murmurings of the crowded line, Graham thought he could make out something like, “Pfft, cheapo!” and “If you can’t afford Frank’s dogs, don’t buy them.”

Walking back the way he’d come in with his hotdog from Frank in hand, Graham thought to himself that there was no way he was going to spend $15 on a stupid hotdog and not have some decent mustard on it at least. Some sauerkraut or onions would be nice, but mustard was a must!

Stepping up to the counter at “Marvin’s Mustard” he saw a plethora of mustards. Hot. Spicy. With horseradish. Creamy. All manner were available. Graham sampled a few, then settled on “Marvinelously Mild” and asked for a medium sized jar that would still fit in his pocket, even after a few pints of beer that he fully intended on having. After all, having spent $15 on a hotdog, what was another $6 for a nice sized jar of gourmet mustard?

The clerk at the counter handed him the jar, took his money, and seeing that he had a hotdog, offered him a flat, wooden popsicle stick to spoon out some. “We don’t have any plastic knives. I hope this is ok,” the clerk remarked. “Works for me,” replied Graham, “And where can I find a beer tent around here?” The clerk began to give Graham directions as Graham popped open the lid of the mustard, scooped out a generous portion, and slathered it on his hotdog. Putting the mustard jar in his jacket pocket and thanking the clerk, Graham turned around to go grab what would probably be more than a few beer.

Graham took a step towards the beer tent, and looked down at his hotdog, satisfied that he had finally gotten his “Frank’s Dog” after years of hearing people blather on about them.

No sooner had he tried to raise his delicious, but expensive, treat to his mouth, than someone grabbed his wrist, yanked it forward, and wiped the mustard off Graham’s hotdog.

“I’m sorry sir. But that’s not a regular hotdog. You’re not permitted to accessorize it with condiments that aren’t pre-approved by Frank.” Incredulously, Graham slowly looked up at a young man wearing a “Frank’s Dogs” shirt.

Graham protested, “But it’s my hotdog. And let go of my wrist!”

The man let go of his wrist and continued, “I see that you have some of Marvin’s Mustard there. Please note that you are in violation of the Frank’s Dog’s eatery agreement, and you must now eat your hotdog in front of me as you’ve already been found in violation. Any further attempt to put unauthorized condiments on this Frank’s Dog will force me to call the police.”

“Huh?” Graham couldn’t believe his ears.

The man in the Frank’s Dogs shirt continued, “Listen, just eat your Frank’s Dog. I don’t want to have to call the police, but I will if I have to.”

“The POLICE?!?”

“Yes. The police.”

“What for? I should call them on you!” Graham stood stunned in disbelief.

“Sir, you cannot simply use any condiment that you want on a Frank’s Dog. There are rules and policies that you must follow.”

“Policies?!?” Graham was simply paralyzed by what he heard, and hadn’t even noticed that once the man had scraped the mustard off from his hotdog, had also let go of his hand.

“Yes sir. You see, you don’t actually own that Frank’s Dog. It belongs to the Frank Company. You merely are paying for the limited right to eat it as it is delivered to you. No more. No less.” The man motioned with his hand for Graham to eat his hotdog.

“Wait a second… I paid $15 for this f***ing hotdog, and I’ll g*****n well eat it as I f***ing see fit!”

The man sighed, as though he’d heard that before. “Hey, I’m just doing my job here. This isn’t my fault. I need food on the table just as much as you do, and, well, this is doing it. I can only tell you what I’m allowed to tell you, and I will have to call the police, and they will put you in jail. Please just eat your Frank’s Dog.”

Graham heard the desperation in the man’s voice and eyes. He wasn’t kidding. “How the heck do I go to jail for putting mustard on this?”

The man sighed and responded, “The product is the exclusive intellectual property of Frank’s Dogs and subject to the terms and conditions of use. Any violation of the terms and conditions of use will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Graham’s eyes had now focused across the way at “Frank’s Dogs” where he saw another sign that was much larger than the menu, and began to wander towards it. The man followed along-side him. Stepping up to the edge of the counter on the left side of the line, he read the heading, “Terms and Conditions”. The text below was in a much smaller font, and barely readable. Graham grabbed the counter and leaned over it to see that the wide sign extended down to the grass on the ground.

Spinning around to face the man, Graham exclaimed, “You mean that this isn’t my hotdog?”

Sighing again, the man responded, “No. It does not belong to you. You have the right to eat it as explained by the ‘Terms and Conditions’ listed behind you. And amongst those terms and conditions are restrictions on the condiments that you can garnish your Frank’s Dog with.”

“It’s a hotdog!” Graham exclaimed. “Who cares?”

“Sir, it’s a Frank’s Dog, and special conditions apply. Please just eat your Frank’s Dog so that I’m not forced to call the police. The recipe and method of cooking are the proprietary property of Frank’s Dogs, and your purchase of a license to eat a Frank’s Dog is implicit acceptance of the Terms and Conditions.”

Graham looked blankly at him and asked, “So, I suppose you’ll be adding drinks with special terms and conditions as well?”

“Actually, we already have, it’s just that today we ran out of the kool-aid.”

********

I hope you liked the story, and more so, I hope it helped to cast some light on some current issues with intellectual property (copyright, trademark, patent, licensing, etc.). There are attacks on your freedom right now, and they are not significantly different than those in the story above. If you think that the above story is outlandish or an exaggeration, well, I really am sorry, but it isn’t. These laws already exist. Please stand up for your rights. Stand up for freedom.

The following is a short list of some excellent web sites where you can find out more about the issues:

2

Let’s get things straight. SOPA and PIPA are NOT about piracy. They are against suppressing free speech. They are tools for a totalitarian/authoritarian government to silence opposition. They are anything but what the mainstream is trying to push them as.

There are plenty of laws already in effect that target copyright infringement. So they are obviously not creating laws that are already in effect. Why would you have 2 laws that say the same thing?

No. SOPA and PIPA are new. They introduce extremely vague language that would effectively allow the government to snipe sites that express dissent.

This isn’t rocket science. These people aren’t totally incompetent. They are smart enough to come up with trojan horse legislation like this and they shouldn’t be underestimated.

Don’t oppose SOPA and PIPA just because you think that they will protect you from piracy. Oppose them because they will be used to silence dissent. Oppose them because they are the tools of dictators and fascists. Oppose them because you believe in freedom. Oppose them because you believe in free thought and freedom of expression. Oppose them because you have a conscience.

I make my living off of intellectual property like copyright. These bills are not there to protect me. These bills are there to silence me and people like me that don’t tow the party line.

Also, please make certain to vote against anyone running for office that has ever supported these bills. SOPA and PIPA are merely symptoms of the disease. The real disease are the people that introduced the bill, the people that supported the bill, and the system that allowed all of this to happen. Vote for people that are willing to stand up for principles and do what is right. Vote for people that have a conscience. Vote for people that believe in freedom. Vote for people that will fight for freedom.

0

Hopefully you’ve been following the SOPA/PIPA debate… In a recent BBC article Richard Mollet, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association, talked about how little value Wikipedia was and how noticeable and dramatic it would be if “rights holders” had a black-out. From the article:

Echoing the statements of rights holders in the US, Richard Mollet, chairman of the Publishers Association, criticised the blacked-out websites for not engaging “constructively” in the piracy debate…

He argued that while Wikipedia was a valued resource, it would be more noticeable to the world if rights holders were to switch off their content for a day.

“Think what you would lose.

“If you walked around the streets of America or Britain with no creative content available to you, because rights holders had decided to shut up shop, you would be deprived of the BBC, cinemas, radio, bookstores and so on.

“What’s at stake when rogue internet sites are available to people and revenues are deprived is a great deal more than the excellent but nevertheless more limited Wikipedia.”

Well then, DO IT!

See how people react. There are many alternative media sources out there. Their shoes would be filled before the day was done.

Please click the graphic above – download it – share it. Let’s see if these guys have the balls to follow through.

Monsanto is an utterly evil corporation that creates bio-weapons, patents them, then passes them off as food. Their bio-weapons are toxic to animals, toxic to humans, and toxic to the environment. Do a few searches to find out just how evil they are.

I will be working to extricate myself from the Microsoft world as soon as possible and in every way that I possibly can.

0

The fundamental, basic attitudes in the current GOP candidates are flawed right from the start. They see the people as slaves to do their bidding, rather than government as the servant of the people. Rick Santorum illustrates this ideology:

We need someone who will… motivate the American public to do its duty. (Source)

So, the people need to do their duty? What about the government? This is a fundamentally flawed outlook that I don’t think anyone can really support, except for those that want to be slaves.

“Motivate”? I wonder if he meant “force”. “To do its duty”? I wonder if he meant “into slavery”.

The only legitimate state is the state that serves its people. Whenever those roles are reversed, it is the DUTY of the people to revolt and overthrow the state.

This is the purpose of the 2nd amendment. It is to keep a degree of power, in the form of potential violence, in the hands of the people so that they have the ability to overthrow an oppressive state, a state that demands that the people serve the state.